The Consultant Contract Evaluator.
A working Excel Calculator that decomposes a UK NHS consultant contract offer into its real economic components — basic pay, additional PAs, on-call, pension uplift, threshold progression — and lets you compare two offers side by side. Built for consultants evaluating job-plan changes, comparing offers between Trusts, or negotiating their own contract for the first time.
What this Calculator is for.
A UK NHS consultant contract is more economically complex than its headline figure suggests. The basic salary is determined by threshold and is fixed; the variable elements — number of programmed activities (PAs), on-call category, additional PAs above the standard 10, supplementary payments — are where the offer becomes negotiable, and where two consultants with the same threshold can have materially different total economic packages. The pension uplift attached to each component varies. The job-plan structure determines what's contractually owed and what's discretionary.
This Calculator does the decomposition. The user enters the components of an offer — basic threshold, PAs, on-call category, supplementary payments, any allowances — and the Calculator computes the total economic value, including pension. A second sheet accepts a second offer and the Comparison sheet produces a like-for-like view of which components differ and by how much.
What's inside.
Six sheets in a single Excel file, plus an accompanying PDF user guide.
- Offer A — first contract offer, by component
- Offer B — second contract offer, by component
- Assumptions — UK 2026/27 consultant pay rates (post-DDRB uplift), NHS pension tiers, on-call supplements
- Comparison — side-by-side breakdown of the two offers, component by component
- Multi-year view — pension accumulation, threshold progression, total economic value over a chosen horizon
- Methodology — what the Evaluator includes, what it leaves to professional advice
What the Calculator handles.
UK 2026/27 consultant thresholds (T1 £109,725 through T9 £145,478 after the 3.5% DDRB uplift). Additional PAs at 10% of basic per PA. On-call categories A and B at their respective supplements. NHS Pension Scheme accrual at 1/54 with employee tiers determined by salary band. The employer's contribution visible to the Trust (14.38%) and the full economic-employer rate (23.7%). The interaction of supplementary payments with pensionable salary. Threshold progression timelines and their multi-year value impact.
What you do with the output.
"Two consultant offers with the same headline basic salary can differ in total economic value by as much as 20% once on-call, additional PAs, pension uplift, and the discretionary elements of the job plan are properly accounted for. The headline figure is not the offer; it is one component of the offer. Reading the offer well means reading the components."
— from the PDF user guide, Reading the decomposition
The Calculator's output supports three decisions: evaluating a single offer against the market norm for its threshold and specialty, comparing two specific offers, and identifying the components most worth pushing on in a negotiation.
Who it's for.
- Trainees with consultant offers in hand. The first consultant contract is a 20+ year decision. The Calculator turns the offer letter into a substantive analytical view.
- Consultants comparing two offers. The job-market view across two Trusts is much harder to assemble than it should be. The Calculator does the assembly.
- Consultants negotiating a job-plan change. The Calculator quantifies the marginal value of additional PAs, on-call changes, or supplementary payments, so the negotiation can be conducted in concrete numbers rather than vague comparisons.
What this Calculator is not.
It is a tool, not employment-law or contractual advice. The legal terms of a UK consultant contract — the clauses governing leave, sick pay, mobility, restrictive covenants, dispute resolution — are not modelled by this Calculator. Those require legal review by a medical solicitor or BMA advisor. The Calculator's scope is the economic decomposition; the contractual decomposition is a separate exercise.
What's related.
A Consultant Contract Guide (clause by clause) and a Negotiation Worksheet are in production. The three products together — Evaluator + Guide + Worksheet — will form the complete economic and contractual workup for evaluating a UK consultant offer.